- Building a Network for Human Rights Archives and Archivists In recent years, archival institutions and organizations have become increasingly concerned with issues regarding human rights records and archival collections.
- User-generated video & authentication: Sri Lanka In August a video showing what appeared to be the cold-blooded execution of Tamils by Sri Lankan soldiers was released by the group Democracy in Sri Lanka and aired on Channel 4 news in the UK.
- Recommended: new book, new blog I am reading, with great pleasure, Randall Jimerson’s newly published Archives Power: Memory, Accountability and Social Justice (2009; Society of American Archivists). The book addresses the role of archives and archivists in society, and evolving perspectives on their relevance to larger issues of social justice. SAA’s blurb: “Grounded in historical and social theory, this analysis […]
- SAA 2009 highlights I unfortunately will not be in Austin next week for the 2009 Society of American Archivists meeting. But if I were, these are some of the sessions I would be sure not to miss:
- Open Video Conference: human rights in an open video culture. Lots of great stuff on tap at this week's Open Video Conference (June 19-20, NYU). My WITNESS colleagues Sam Gregory and Sameer Padania will speak on the panel "Human Rights, Indigenous Media and Ethics in Video: Dilemmas, Challenges and Opportunities:"
- Notes from AMIA 2008: Part 1 Back from the 2008 Association of Moving Image Archives conference (AMIA) in Savannah, a beautiful city. No archive visits, but then Savannah is an archive in itself, and extremely rich in metadata, eg: It was a good conference. A couple of themes were dominant. Key for me was the focus on archiving in the context […]
- New WITNESS Archive Intern My name is Ioannis Papaloizou and I am from Cyprus. My educational background is in film and video production (I obtained my Bachelor’s degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York) and more recently in “Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image” (prof. Master’s degree of the University of Amsterdam). At the university […]
- Lawsuit to demand Cheney papers be made public Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) (with others) has filed a lawsuit to challenge Vice president Dick Cheney’s position, supported by NARA, that his office is not part of the Bush administration, and thus not subject to the Presidential Records Act of 1978. See the Washington Post for more.
- SAA2008: A few final notes Back from SF, to the office, first day of school, general fall craziness. I want to post just a couple of other notes re SAA before I move on to other topics. The session “Returning Displaced Archives: Legal and Ethical Perspectives” moderated by Trudy Peterson. The panelists, to whom scenarios (hypothetical and actual) were put […]
- SAA2008: Meaning, Justice and John Dean I started the day with “What, Why, How? Archival Meaning in a R/Evolutionary Age” which featured three excellent papers exploring meaning, purpose and collective identity for archivists. I especially liked Scott Cline’s paper which explored what he called “archival being” the core values of which are faith, radical self-understanding, intention, and integrity; and illustrated via […]
- SAA2008 I will be in San Francisco all of next week for the Society of American Archivists annual meeting. Of particular note: Global Issues Forum on “Archival Ethics and Social Justice: What is our Professional Responsibility?” Consisting of panelists and open discussion, the forum will begin by considering the “Key Propositions and Questions,” presented in the […]
- Further thoughts on AMIA-Rochester A follow up to the Association of Moving Image Archivists conference two weeks ago: WITNESS Archive staff attended an thoughtful session entitled “Recording Retribution: Issues in the Curation of, and Access to, Actuality Footage of War and Atrocity.” Speakers included staff from the Imperial War Museum, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Inkulla Media. Presentations […]
- Caught On Camera: Human Rights Videos on GV [via GV/WITNESS] [Originally published here as part of WITNESS’s collaboration with Global Voices Online] You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s been Saddam, Saddam, Saddam, in recent weeks, but GV has covered other human rights videos that deserve a bit of limelight – so, in this regular new feature, I’m going to round up the best of those […]
